


Unthinkable

by Mireille



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Weasleycest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-01-13
Updated: 2002-01-13
Packaged: 2018-08-16 11:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8100106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Ron's going to be an Auror. Percy doesn't want him to.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written before the publication of OOTP and therefore does not fit in at all (even as much as this possibly could) with canon.

"Tell him he's being ridiculous, Mum."

"Shut up, Percy," Ron snaps, and our mother shakes her head in exasperation. Ron and I have had this argument at least twice a day for the past week, ever since Ron got the letter from the Ministry. "You don't think it's ridiculous, do you, Mum? It's an amazing opportunity to--"

"Get yourself killed," I interrupt. "I've lined up an interview for you in Magical Transportation, and I don't see why you can't at least give it a chance."

He scowls at me, and I long to slip back into the familiar patterns of argument between the two of us. When we were younger, we butted heads more than the rest of our siblings combined; the twins liked to torment me, but rarely felt the need to fight every single thing I said as vehemently as Ron did. Or maybe I just bothered Ron more. It doesn't matter; we rarely argue now. We rarely say anything at all. He doesn't like me enough for conversation, and I--I have no idea what to say to him. Not the truth, and I'm not imaginative enough to lie consistently.

"What are you really doing this for, Ron?" I continue. "Glory? Fame? Not for money, I know they don't pay aurors all that well, though there's a good death benefit," I can't resist adding. I shouldn't, but I want to scare him. I want him to stay alive.

"It's what I want to do," he replies. "You're doing what _you_ want. Everyone else in the family is doing what they want. Why can't I?"

I'm doing what I want? Since when? I'm doing what Bill should have done, or Charlie; getting a steady, safe job that means I can help out. I didn't even take the time to think about what I wanted. Probably for the best, given the sort of things I appear to be likely to want.

I open my mouth to correct him when our mother puts one hand on each of our shoulders. "Boys," she says, in the firm tone that, when we were children, meant we were _one word_ away from getting smacked and sent to our rooms. "This is Ron's last day at home, and I am not going to spend it listening to you two quarrel."

"Sorry, Mum," we both mumble, and she nods and heads back to the kitchen.

"Not another word," Ron says when she's gone. "I'm not a kid any more, Percy, and even when I was, I didn't need you fussing over me."

No, Ron isn't a child any more. He's almost as tall as I am, and broader through the shoulders and chest, even though his frame probably hasn't finished filling out yet. There's a sprinkling of coarse stubble along his jaw, too, and I remember the little boy who used to sit next to me on the floor while we watched Dad shave, both of us transfixed by the thought of being an adult ourselves. I wanted to be able to make things right, to make Dad less tired and Mum less worried, and Ron wanted-- Ron never told me what he wanted, but I'm sure we didn't want the same thing.

Neither one of us is the same person he was then, and it's not just the passage of time. Ron's already buried more friends than most people three times his age, and I--

Well. This isn't exactly what I'd envisioned for myself, either. "I'm not going to fuss," I said. "I just want you to think about what it'll do to m--Mum and Dad if you get yourself killed chasing around after Harry." That's not fair, and I know it, but I don't care. I can't say what I want to; I can never say what I want to, so I bury it in layers and layers of rubbish, until only I can hear the stark fear behind the words. Ron dying--it's unthinkable. And I've become an expert in the unthinkable, these past couple of years.

He glares at me. "I'm not 'chasing around after Harry.' We're going to be doing important work. Not that you'd understand that," he tosses over his shoulder as he pushes past me toward the stairs. "After all, it doesn't involve cauldron thickness or the fiber density of magic carpets."

I almost point out that magic carpets are still illegal in Britain, but I realize in time that it'll just make the argument that much worse. "At least promise me you'll be careful," I say before I can stop myself.

"As if you care." He can still stomp up a flight of stairs with the best of them.

Once he's gone, I disappear into my own room, locking the door behind me in case the twins have anything planned. They're home for Ron's sendoff, and they must have saved up every idea for a new product for the joke shop so that they could test them all on their unsuspecting family. Ginny's hair's been three different colors since Friday, and all of us have learned to be very careful when opening doors, tasting food that's been out of our sight for more than a second, or accepting _anything_ the twins offer us, even if it appears to be the newspaper. They don't even _mean_ to be annoying. It's just something that happens, like the sun rising, and after twenty years, I'm beginning to learn to deal with it. They don't get under my skin the way they used to.

Ron's a different matter altogether. He's always been able to get to me. It's always driven me mad how much of a hothead he is, how ruled by his emotions. It got him into trouble when he was at school, and I'm afraid it's going to get him into trouble now.

I'm afraid of a lot of things when it comes to Ron. And maybe I do fuss too much, and maybe I've always argued with him more than I should, and maybe I have my reasons. And they all have to do with Ron. Stubborn, hot-tempered, quick to take offense, slow to relinquish a grudge. Independent from the day he took his first steps, letting go of my hand to totter across the floor of the cellar we were using as a safe house that month.

At least, independent from _me_. He's quite willing to throw his lot in with other people--with two other people, anyway, and I know it's ridiculous of me to be jealous of them. Even if _they'll_ still have him when we've lost him, when six months of auror training with no outside contact has made him into someone we barely recognize.

That's what I'm afraid of, even more than him dying. That I won't know him any more. That everything he feels won't sweep across his face, one emotion following the next like clouds driven by the wind. That this will be the last wedge that finally drives us apart forever--strangers connected by blood, but by nothing else.

And I know that if it does, it'll be my fault. I'm not Ron's favorite person, but I'm his brother, and he's loyal to his family. I'm the one who's been pulling away from Ron for years, all because I let myself think things that should never, ever be thought, even if they're never expressed. I'm the one who let the years when we saw each other only during the holidays--first when I was at school before him, and then after I'd gone on to the Ministry--convince me that really, we didn't know each other all that well. It was like we weren't even family--what would it hurt to just think...?

And I'm the one who's going to have to face the music if anyone ever finds out just what I've been thinking. I've spent too much time envisioning their reactions: Mum and Dad aghast, Ginny appalled, the twins (who aren't shocked by much, I suspect) wickedly amused... and Ron, horrified. Stunned. Betrayed--by me, and that's the part I can't accept.

So I started avoiding him. Stopped nagging him to study and stay out of trouble, stopped letting him trounce me at wizard chess, stopped talking to him altogether. We're virtually strangers now; what will these six months do?

I can't lose him altogether.

I understand full well that I shouldn't want this, and yes, I've become acquainted with the depths to which self-loathing can sink. And I understand that I won't--I shouldn't--I can't ever have him in my life the way I would choose to. But I'm not yet willing to let him pass out of my life completely, and I'm the one who has to make the gesture. He won't. Not my stubborn, blissfully innocent, R--

Not my little brother.

So when Ginny calls that dinner is ready, I go downstairs to sit across from Ron and Harry--who's returned from saying his goodbyes to his godfather; Hermione is with her parents, Ron informs us, and will be joining them in the morning--and try not to choke on my mother's cooking, which has suddenly become as flavorful as shoe leather, as I make myself wish them both luck in the training course.

And after dinner, when we all wind up sitting outside to enjoy the cool of the evening, I find myself next to Ron. "You *will* be careful, though," I tell him.

"Oh, for--Percy, stop trying to boss me around," he grumbles, turning to appeal to Harry to take his side.

"I have a right to," I inform him, in the lofty tone I usually reserve for the office. "I'm your brother. It comes with the territory." Then I make myself smile at both of them. "That applies to you, too, Harry."

"Now I know the good side of being an orphan," Harry says, and for a while, the two of them grouse to each other about who has it worse. Then the twins "accidentally" set off a Dungbomb instead of a firework, and Ron wins the competition handily.

"I'm your brother," I repeat to myself. The words feel strange, like our school robes did each September after a summer of dressing to blend in with the rest of the village, when we had to go back to being our normal selves. Who we were all the time, only we pretended not to be.

Eventually, it always started feeling right again, and we didn't miss our Muggle clothing, stopped catching our sleeves and hems on the furniture as we passed. We just had to wait.

In the absence of another choice...I'm prepared to wait.


End file.
